For the period 1979-1995, the childhood cancer incidence rate for all sites combined was 14.3 per 100,000 NJ children compared to 13.6 per 100,000 US children (Table 1a). In NJ, the total childhood cancer rate among boys was 15.5 per 100,000 and among girls was 13.1 per 100,000, while the US rate among boys was 14.4 per 100,000 and among girls was 12.8 per 100,000. The incidence of cancer among white children in NJ was higher than the corresponding rate for the US (14.6 per 100,000 compared 14.0 per 100,000) but among black children in NJ was slightly lower than the US rate (11.2 per 100,000 compared to 11.7 per 100,000) (Table 1b).

Incidence and Mortality Trends, 1979-1995

Figure 3 presents incidence and mortality rates for all childhood cancers combined. In NJ, the childhood cancer incidence rate was 14.2 per 100,000 in 1979-81 and 15.0 per 100,000 in 1992-94 with two peaks. The first peak, in 1983, appears to reflect an increase in the incidence of leukemias and the second peak, in 1991, may reflect increases in the incidence of brain cancers, leukemias and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The US total childhood cancer incidence rate increased from 12.6 per 100,000 in 1979-81 to 13.9 per 100,000 in 1992-94. However, childhood cancer mortality rates in both NJ and the US have declined from 4.3 per 100,000 in 1979-81 to 2.9 per 100,000 in 1993-95.